My Two Straight Dads
by xCaligula
Summary: A cracktastic prompt on the kinkmeme. An AU in which Sally dies during childbirth and, through some chain of events, is raised by both Eddie and Hollis. How is her life different? How are theirs? How does this affect her relationships and her feelings about the world around her? Most importantly, how do her two straight dads keep from killing each other?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Someone on the kink meme requested a story in which, somehow, Hollis and Eddie both raised Laurie. I decided to take on that challenge, because Eddie is my main muse, and I also really love writing Laurie. The idea interested me because I began to wonder how her life would have been different. This chapter focuses more on her than Hollis and Eddie, but there will certainly be more of them in the future. I also plan to write side stories to accompany this with their perspectives.**

Laurel Sally Blake had always known that she had an unusual life. By the time she was thirteen, this was not news to her, though she would occasionally stop to think about just how strange things really were for her. As if it were not enough that she had never gone to a normal school and been home-schooled all her life, she had also never known her mother.

The fact that she had been raised by two men was pretty strange in and of itself, and the fact that they were both costumed adventurers was incredibly odd, but the thing that struck her as the strangest now was the fact that her dads were both very much heterosexual.

She had never gotten clear details on how, exactly, the arrangement had come to be. She knew that her mother, a famous crime fighter and beauty named Sally Jupiter, had died during childbirth. At the time, she had been married to a man that was not Laurie's father, and he had wanted Hollis Mason, a friend of her mother's and another crime fighter, to adopt her.

Edward Blake, yet another costumed adventurer, was Laurie's biological father, and, of course, he wanted a part in raising her. There was some sort of legal dispute that ended in them agreeing to raise her together and live together, but if she asked them how they had ever agreed to that, she would get different answers. Her father would say he felt bad for Hollis and did it for his sake; Hollis would say her father was drunk.

Whatever the case, Laurie had been raised by Nite Owl and the Comedian, and had grown up hearing about how wonderful her mother, the Silk Spectre, had been. She could tell from the photographs that she was, most likely, the most beautiful woman in the world, and she decided from a young age that she would follow in her mother's footsteps. She had never had the chance to know her, but that felt like a way to be close to her.

Hollis had not been so sure about that, having grown more and more disillusioned with the hero lifestyle as time went on, but the more he disapproved, the more her father would encourage it, always quick to disagree with the other man. And so both trained her in addition to her studies, so that when she was ready to take to the streets, she would be strong enough to defend herself.

The year was 1962, and Hollis had just retired from crime fighting for good. He was attempting to start up an auto repair shop, while her father continued to his hero business and even did work with the government. There were times when he had to travel, and those times were starting to become more frequent. Still, he took the time to train Laurie when he could, though she felt it would still be quite some time before she would be ready to debut as the new Silk Spectre.

~X~

 _In 1960, when Laurie was eleven years old, Hollis and her father received invitations to a charity party. Several other heroes were going to be present, including a strange blue man she had seen on the news quite recently. Of course, she wanted to go more than anything, but Hollis insisted that that was no place for a child._

 _Because Hollis said she couldn't go, her father was adamant that she did, and so he planned to take her and introduce her as his "up and coming sidekick". She was so excited for the event that she could hardly sleep the night before, and wore her mom's old costume, even knowing that it did not fit her yet._

 _As soon as she arrived, she felt wonderfully out of place. She was acutely aware of how her mom's dress hung in places and how silly she must look, like a child playing dress up in a grown man's world. She stuck mostly to her father's side as he caught up with another of his and Hollis' friends, a man who called himself Captain Metropolis. At some point in the night, she slipped away to find Hollis, and that was when she saw him._

 _A pale blue glow followed Dr. Manhattan wherever he went, and it was hard not to look at him. A young lady was on his arm and Laurie wondered what it would be like to be his girlfriend. She blushed at the thought, realizing that this was the first time she had ever thought about something like that._

 _From that point on, she was fascinated by him, and secretly tried to follow him around the room. She wanted to hear what someone like him would talk about, wanted to catch him saying something romantic to his girlfriend, just wanted to be closer to him and know everything about him._

 _While she was sneaking around and not really paying much attention, she bumped into a blonde young man in a purple mask. She mumbled an apology and he gave her a polite smile while he told her it was okay, but he seemed just as distracted by Dr. Manhattan as she was. She recognized this man from the news, knew that he called himself something weird that she struggled to pronounce, and decided that he was incredibly attractive. However, standing next to a man like Dr. Manhattan, he was hardly notable, and she forgot about him soon after._

 _As the night wore on, she grew tired of following him around and started to wonder what the purpose of it was. It was just as she was about to give up that he started to talk with Hollis. She considered eavesdropping for a moment, but decided instead to try and track down her father._

" _Laurie!" called Hollis when she walked past, trying to cross the room to where her father was talking with Captain Metropolis again._

 _She was suddenly overcome with shyness, and nervously walked over to where he and the mysterious doctor were speaking. Hollis put his hand on the small of her back and said, "This is the little girl I was telling you about! Laurie, meet Dr. Manhattan. Oh, but I guess I should call you Silk Spectre, right?"_

 _Again, she felt ridiculous in her costume, and just felt ridiculous in general. Of course, she was just a little girl and of course Dr. Manhattan would see her as such. Of course that was how Hollis would introduce her, and of course that was how she would look standing next to his beautiful girlfriend. What on earth had she been thinking before?_

" _Hello, Laurie," said Dr. Manhattan, a tranquil smile on his face as he reached out for a handshake. When their hands touched, electricity sparked through her and she blushed at the pleasantness of the situation._

" _It's nice to meet you," said his girlfriend, also offering her hand. "My name is Janey." Her hand did not feel all that special, and suddenly she looked less beautiful, less glamorous. She looked ordinary, and Laurie did not feel as inadequate._

" _It's a pleasure to finally meet you," said Dr. Manhattan after a moment, and for the rest of the brief conversation, he appeared to be looking at her with interest, though she supposed she could have just imagined it from wishful thinking._

 _Not long later, Janey grew tired and the two of them went home. The blonde man came by to say hello, and Hollis led Laurie back to her father. The three went home soon after, and it felt nice to get out of the over-sized dress._

 _If she did not grow soon, she would certainly need a different costume._


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: There's an OC in this chapter, but she's more of a plot device than a character. Also, more family stuff this go around.**

"You're getting a lot better at this," said Hollis. "Any day now, I'd say you'd be able to give your mother a run for her money!"

"Oh, hush," Laurie said, though she was pleased. They had been training her hand-to-hand combat.

"Now, I'm not kidding," he said. "You're going to be a great Silk Spectre, you know? Hey, did I tell you I got a letter from someone wanting to use my name?"

"What, you mean like some other guy wants to be called Nite Owl?" she asked. "How come?"

"Well, according to his letter, he wants to start fighting crime and always looked up to me!" Hollis chuckled. "Would you believe that? I never really thought Nite Owl was that good of a name, but..."

"Come on, less talking, more training!" she said. "Let's get back to it!"

"Now, Laurie," he said, "you know it's about time for us to wrap things up. It's going to be dinner time soon, and your father said he was bringing someone over tonight."

"Who?" she asked. "Does Dad even have any friends?"

Hollis could not help but laugh at that, but was gracious enough to not give his two cents on the topic. "I'm not sure who, he didn't say. But we aren't going to find out if we don't get cleaned up and get dinner ready, now, will we?"

Laurie begrudgingly went along with him and helped him prepare dinner and set the table with an extra place for whoever her father's guest may be. When the food was done and table ready, she and Hollis sat in their usual seats and waited. Her father was late, but he had never much been one for punctuality.

Eventually, they heard the door open, and voices in the foyer. A feminine giggle rang out and Laurie noticed Hollis pale. He now knew what she had begun to suspect while they were cooking; her father had brought home a woman.

"I'm home!" he called out, striding into the room with a petite woman hanging off his arm and giggling again. She was young- she couldn't be a day over twenty three, and she had curly red hair and wore a lot of pink.

"Dollface?" asked Hollis.

"Hey, now, she ain't in costume," he replied. "In here, she's just Annie. Isn't that right?"

"Yup!" she said with a smile. "It's nice to see you somewhere other than the streets, Hollis." She turned her attention to the teenager in the room. "And this must be little Laurie! I've heard so much about you!"

"Eddie, did you seriously bring home a known criminal to meet your family?" asked Hollis, glaring at the other man.

"Aw, come on, no one takes that hero-villain nonsense seriously anymore," he replied. "Lately, every time me an' her fought, it just turned into us talkin' about things and, well...things just kinda escalated from there." Laurie felt her stomach turn from both nausea and humiliation at the look her father gave the young woman.

To make matters worse, Annie burst out laughing and slapped his arm playfully. "Eddie, cut it out!"

"Laurie, aren't ya gonna say somethin' to our guest?" he asked, turning his attention to his daughter.

"It's nice to meet you," she mumbled, forcing a smile. Judging from how this Annie hung all over her father, the knowledge that she was a criminal, the way Hollis glared at the couple, and the pit that had formed in her stomach, this dinner was going to be absolutely painful.

~X~

Unfortunately, Laurie's prediction was spot on. They ate in near silence, broken occasionally by Eddie trying to find common ground between his guest and his daughter to start a conversation. When that failed- and it always did- things would go silent again until Annie said something flattering and the cycle started all over again.

Eventually, Hollis, unable to sit through any more of this, got up without a word and retreated to his bedroom. Not long after, Laurie excused herself and went to her own room, hoping that her father would take the hint and take his date home soon.

After what felt like an eternity, but was probably more like an hour, she heard the door open and close, and assumed that the two had left. She decided that it now would be a good time to try to fall asleep, before her father returned and tried to ask her how she felt about the woman. She closed her eyes.

~X~

She couldn't remember drifting off, but when she opened her eyes again, the sun had set completely and she could hear muffled yelling from somewhere in the house. It was her father, and she got up to go investigate, slipping out of her room to hide just outside of his door.

"-none of your damn business who I see!" she heard him shout.

"That may be true," said Hollis, his voice a bit more level, "but that's no excuse for what you did tonight. I don't care who your little fuck buddies are. Hell, I don't care if you're sleeping with every female criminal in the city of New York, but to bring one of them home like that!"

"Like what? Like a fuckin' normal man would?" he retorted. "Jesus Christ, what the hell is so wrong with me bringin' a lady home to meet my daughter? She's thirteen, she knows how it is. She knows her old man is gonna go out with women."

"There wouldn't be anything wrong with it if it hadn't been someone like _that_ ," replied Hollis. "She's barely older than Laurie, for one thing, and I don't care about your bullshit argument, she's still a wanted criminal. And you know she's not a real redhead, right?"

"What the fuck are you implyin'?"  
"What, you didn't think I would notice?" He sounded smug. "With hair like that? And let's not forget, her costume looked just like a cheap knockoff of Sally's. Like I said, I don't care who your fuck buddies are, but you don't need to bring your trashy replacements around here."

Laurie heard a thud and a groan of pain from Hollis. From the sound of things, her father had just punched him in the stomach.

"Don't ever let me hear you sayin' shit like that ever again," he growled. "You hear me, Hollis?"

"Does it hit too close to home? Does it make you mad that I'm right?" There was no response from her father, so he continued. "It's not my fault you won't admit that you miss her."

"So what if I fuckin' do?" he finally snapped. "Doesn't make any difference. She's gone and she ain't comin' back, and giving Laurie a family is the only damn thing I have left to do for her. I know you don't understand. I know you still think I didn't deserve her. But at least I was man enough to go after her."

"Eddie..."

"Get the fuck out of here."

"Eddie, I don't-"

"I said, get out!"

Laurie took off running, as quickly and quietly as she could, just in case Hollis listened and left the room. She was back in her bed before anyone suspected a thing, and took this time to think about what she had heard.

It had never been a secret from her that her parents had not been together, and she had assumed that her mother's relationship with her father had been a one-time thing. Some fling that had meant nothing to either, but that had had a consequence that they were willing to take care of. She had never thought that her father had actually been in love, that the relationship might have been more than that, and that stunned her.

What was even more stunning was her father's accusation, and the fact that Hollis had not denied it. Had he been in love with her mother too? She had never seen him show any interest in anyone, he had never gone on any dates. Could it be that he had been in love with her mother and never moved on from her?

That was so tragically romantic that Laurie could hardly stand it. She felt sorry for Hollis then, and wondered what it was like to be that lonely. Would he ever find someone to love? She had limited experience in the romance department- if harboring a slight crush on Dr. Manhattan for the past two years counted as limited experience- but she knew, in that moment, that she had to do something to make him happy.

She was going to find him a girlfriend if it was the last thing she did.

~X~

The next morning, her father woke her up, sitting awkwardly on the side of her bed. It was rare that he had any serious talks with her, but whenever he did, they were very brief and very uncomfortable for both parties.

"I'm...sorry about last night," he said. "Ya know, if it made you feel uncomfortable or anythin'. I shoulda told ya I had a lady comin' over, I shoulda asked how ya felt about it or whatever..."

"It's fine, Dad," she said. And it was; the fact that he was even bothering to apologize, that he had even bothered to think about how it made her feel, was not something she was used to. It meant a lot, coming from him.

"Well, uh, anyway...I've been thinkin' about it, and I'm not really sure if that's somethin' I should keep doing. I guess, what I'm sayin' is, ya won't be seeing me bringin' home anymore girls for a long time. Probably gonna take a break from that datin' business." He chuckled good naturedly and she smiled back.

She knew, of course, that that meant nothing. He would still be sleeping around and he would most likely continue to see Annie, as well as a plethora of other women with questionable backgrounds, but it was the thought that counted.

 **A/N: Next time, there's a time skip and some Laurie trying to be a matchmaker, as well as her finally becoming a hero.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Finally got this update cranked out. Laurie's a little bit older now, but her intentions are the same.**

Two years passed with little success in Laurie's attempts to find Hollis the perfect girlfriend. For someone who got out as little as she did, it was hard for her to even meet single women in his age group, and when she did, she was faced with the problem of finding a way to get them to meet. She had to both convince the woman that her uncle, as she had come to call him, was a fantastic man, and then had to drag said uncle out to meet this woman.

More often than not, she could not even get them to meet, and on the rare occasions that she did, it never lasted longer than one date. "It's just not the right time," Hollis would always say, but that was not an answer that Laurie liked. Still, it seemed that no matter how hard she tried, she could not find any success.

And that was not the only thing she felt like she wasn't very successful at. Now that she was fifteen and had been training for so long, her father had decided it was the perfect time for her to start getting some real street experience. At the present time, she was only allowed to do vigilante work as his sidekick, and that would have been fine, but he had to travel for government stuff more and more frequently, meaning that she very rarely got to patrol.

She had designed a new costume that was similar to her mother's and bore its yellow and black color scheme, but it fit her much better in both size and style. She was rather proud of it, at least, but it would have been nicer if she actually got to wear it out more often and actually got to do anything of note while wearing it. She was fast, she was stealthy, she was an excellent shot, and her hand-to-hand combat was phenomenal, but, next to her father, she barely had to lift a finger.

She didn't know how she was going to prove that she was able to go out on her own if every fight was just her picking off the stragglers that tried to crawl away after her father had already beaten them within an inch of their lives. If she tried to point out that Hollis' successor was already out on his own, she was met with the argument that he was older than her and that he had these strange gadgets to make things easier, and a bunch of other nonsense that she figured were just excuses.

One of the downsides to having two fathers, she supposed, was that you would be met with twice the amount of over-protection.

So, between her lack of success in Hollis' love life and her lack of success as the new Silk Spectre, Laurie was feeling a bit a useless. It seemed like there was nothing going for her anymore and she wondered if her mom ever had problems like that. She figured that she didn't- from what she had heard, she was gorgeous and tough-as-nails. If she wanted something, she probably got it. Not for the first time, Laurie wished she had inherited more from her than her eyes and a tacky middle name.

~X~

One night, when her father was actually in town and willing to take her out, they came upon two men mugging a woman. It was clear that their intentions were much worse, and that the situation was about to take a much darker turn. Her father hated crimes like this; Laurie wasn't sure what the difference was, but there was something about rape cases that affected him much differently than the typical mugging or street fight or robbery.

She couldn't blame him- she thought that rape was absolutely deplorable and on the same level as murder in terms of severity, but her father was not a serious man. There was almost nothing that caused his to drop his easygoing, joke-cracking facade, but when he saw someone forcing themselves on a woman, something in him snapped and Laurie could only stand back and watch as he tore into whoever was stupid enough to pull something like that on his streets.

So she stood back and watched. Though the two men had numbers, that did not serve an advantage against someone like the Comedian and they were no match for him. While he made them suffer for their crimes, the terrified woman stumbled away, barely able to walk from the remnants of her shock.

Laurie walked up to her and helped support her. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm...I think I'm fine," the woman said. "At least, thanks to you and that man. I could have been a lot worse off, at least." She accompanied this with a small laugh, already starting to recover. Crime was so common place these days that the surviving victims were hardly affected; Laurie was glad that they recovered rather quickly, but she hated what that said about the world around her.

"We're just doing our job," she said, trying her best to sound noble. She gave the woman a once over and observed that she was not young- she had to be near her father's age, at the youngest. And yet there was still something beautiful about her, with a kind look in her eyes that made her seem trustworthy. An idea started to form in Laurie's mind.

"I really can't thank you enough," said the woman, who had finally stopped shaking and seemed completely unfazed by the fight going on behind them. "If there's anything I can do to repay you..."

"Well," said Laurie, "there is one thing..."

~X~

"Laurie, I appreciate the effort, but don't you think it's getting ridiculous for me to go out with another woman I haven't even met?" asked Hollis.

Laurie groaned in frustration and rolled her eyes. "Come on," she said, "you barely get out at all. It took a lot for me to set this up and she's a really nice lady! The least you could do is give her a chance. I mean, for my sake."

He sighed, knowing that there was no way out of this. "Alright, alright," he said. "I'll meet this nice lady, but no promises."

~X~

On the evening that Hollis went out with the woman that Laurie had helped save, she was all set to stay up late and wait for him. He had been reluctant to go when he found out that her father was going to be away for something, but she had insisted she would be fine, being fifteen and all. He had even offered to have a friend come by, the one who borrowed his name, but the thought of being babysat at her age and by someone only a few years older than her was more mortifying than she could bear.

Eventually, she had convinced Hollis to go, and he had left at last. With no one there to try and enforce any rules on her, she could stay up as late as she wanted, and would be there when Hollis got home to find out if things had gone as well as she was sure they would. In the meantime, she had the house to herself to keep entertained, and she flipped on the television.

It had been four years since her initial encounter with him and she felt silly for still feeling this way, but Laurie still got a small thrill whenever she saw anything relating to Dr. Manhattan. It wasn't that she thought about him constantly or anything like that, but her crush was definitely still there and still made itself known whenever she saw a picture of him or heard his name.

She was sure that there was something weird about that, that she had such a large crush on someone as odd looking and generally unusual as him, and wondered what that said about her. Not to mention the fact that it had lasted for about four years now, and showed no sign of fading.

Still, even wondering why she was enough of a freak to be into a guy like that, she was happy to see that they were showing some special about him on TV. Shows like that had become less frequent lately, as he wasn't willing to do interviews and there was only so much content to show, so managing to catch a new one was a special occasion.

Laurie lost herself in the show, which only lasted an hour, and then flipped over to see if there was anything else interesting on. She found a movie that she liked and watched for a little bit, until she heard the door open and jump. Was her father home already? He wasn't supposed to be back for another three days.

The thought occurred to her that it could be a burglar, stupid enough to come in through the front door. Maybe Hollis had forgotten to lock it in his haste to meet his date, and now Laurie was going to be attacked. It was the burglar's misfortune, she thought, tangling with a hero like her. She was stood up to get into a fighting stance, but paused when she saw that it was only Hollis.

"What are you doing home so early?" she asked. "Didn't it go well? Didn't you like her?"

"It went fine," said Hollis.

"So then why are you home early? Is something wrong?"

"No, Laurie, nothing's wrong," he said. "She was very nice and we had a lovely chat, but it just wasn't right."

"What do you mean, it wasn't right? Did you even give her a chance?" she demanded.

"Of course I did, but it just wasn't a good fit for me," he said with a sigh. "I really appreciate all of your efforts, but I'm just not looking to date anyone right now. It's sweet of you to be so concerned, but I'm happy just the way things are."

"But...don't you get lonely?"

"With that father of yours running around here whenever he's in town, the quiet is honestly a welcome change when he's gone," said Hollis with a chuckle. "And with you here, I could never be lonely. You're the only woman I need in my life."

Laurie groaned, but couldn't deny that his praise made her feel good. "Oh, come on..."

"I mean it," he said with a warm smile. "I'm happy the way things are with us and our home. Maybe someday I'll be interested in dating and you can try to play matchmaker, but until then, I want you to stop worrying about me."

Laurie nodded and said, "Alright...I guess I understand." It was hard for her to really understand, but she decided that for his sake, she would try to. After all, he had been nice enough to humor her and go on all these dates. The least she could do for him was leave him well enough alone.

At least, after she asked one last question. "Were you in love with my mom?"

"I..." He stared at her, surprised that she had caught on. "Well, I, uh...I suppose I did care about her a lot, but...I-I wouldn't say..."

"You're a terrible liar," said Laurie with a giggle. "Is she the reason you don't want to date anymore?"

He shook his head. "No, she isn't. Your mother was very dear to me, and losing her was very hard on me, but I never even had the guts to ask her out. I can't pine for her forever, especially not when I have the responsibility of looking after her daughter."

"Mom doesn't know what she missed out on," she replied and Hollis smiled.

 **A/N: Sorry for anyone who wanted to see Hollis gettin' some, but I feel like if he wanted a lady friend, he could find one, and since he doesn't in canon, he's probably happy single. Throw in a sort-of daughter, and I think he'd be perfectly content.**

 **Next chapter, we get to see the Crimebusters meeting and how things would go down with her and Eddie there together.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Here it is, at long last. Sorry it took so long, life has been crazy lately!**

In 1966, when Laurie was just about to turn seventeen, she and her father received an invitation from a man named Nelson Gardner. According to her father and Hollis, this was the same man as Captain Metropolis, and, from the looks of his invitation, he was still very passionate about crime fighting.

So passionate, in fact, that he was trying to start a group called the Crimebusters, and had invited Laurie and her father to the first meeting. Of course, this excited her. To be in a real super hero group, just like her mother and father and Hollis had would mean that she had made it, that she was more than just a sidekick. Perhaps with someone else in charge, she would get the chance to patrol on her own.

Hollis was less than enthusiastic about the whole ordeal, and tried to talk her father out of taking her a few times. He had never really approved of her being a hero for whatever reason, and he must have sensed the independence that might come with her becoming a part of the group.

"Is that brat of yours going?" Eddie asked.

"Dan?" replied Hollis. "Well, yes, he got an invitation too, but I never encouraged him-"

"Sure, ya never encouraged him, but ya let him have your name and ya taught him some of your fightin' secrets." Laurie's father smirked at him then. "Ya say ya want this hero thing to die out, but ya never stopped Dan and ya never really tried to stop Laurie either. Can't ya let her have this?"

"We both know you don't want to go any more than I want her to go."

At that point, Laurie had interrupted. "What's he talking about, Dad? Why don't you want to?"

Her father glared at Hollis and said, "Don't listen to him. I definitely wanna go, it's just, I get busy sometimes and-"

"But we have to go!" she said, feeling her chances slip away.

"No, no, I didn't mean we wouldn't," he said. "I'm just saying, that's why he thinks I don't want to, is all. But we're goin', and that's all there is to it." Hollis sighed and Eddie smirked at him again.

Laurie had no doubt that this had more to do with her father wanting to be defiant, but she didn't care. She was going to the meeting, and that was all that really mattered.

~X~

The night of the meeting arrived and Laurie could barely contain her excitement as she and her father arrived at the mansion of Nelson Gardner. They were shown in by the older man, though Laurie had to hold back giggles. It seemed he had put on a little weight over the years and was far from the handsome Captain Metropolis she had seen in her parents' old photos.

When they entered the room where the meeting was being held, she felt her heart leap into her throat at the sight of a familiar blue glow. It had been five years since she had last seen Dr. Manhattan in person, but even still, the sight of him didn't fail to take her breath away. Sadly, she also greeted by the sight of his old girlfriend, still clinging to his arm as always.

Other than him, their was the pretty blonde man she had also seen five years ago, the one she now knew was called Ozymandias. There was Hollis' successor, the new Nite Owl, who looked so dorky in his costume that again, Laurie had to stifle a laugh. Finally, there was a man in an unusual mask, Rorschach. He had been appearing on the news more and more lately, and was allegedly seen partnering with Nite Owl on more than one occasion. Something about him creeped her out.

She and her father settled in, sitting side by side as she tried to subtly look at Dr. Manhattan. But then he turned to look at her and it was suddenly obvious that she had been staring as they made eye contact. She blushed, smiling at him to cover her embarrassment, and he smiled back, the same tranquil smile that she remembered from the benefit when she was eleven.

His girlfriend looked up then and noticed their eye contact before they could break it. She gave Laurie a glare cold enough to freeze hell over before squeezing his arm a little tighter, as if to show her dominance. His attention was turned back to her then, and Laurie rolled her eyes. Jealously never looked good on anyone.

Captain Metropolis looked around the room before clearing his throat. "Well, firstly, let me say I'm pleased to see so many of you here, very pleased. Secondly, for those who only know me as Captain Metropolis, the name's Nelson Gardner. Call me Nelson." He smiled warmly at everyone, before continuing.

"Third, uh...I guess I should welcome everybody to the first ever meeting of of the Crimebusters! Why the Crimbusters? Well, as you know, this country hasn't had an organization of masked adventurers since the Minutemen disbanded in '47. Specialized law enforcement is standing still, but crime isn't.

"New social evils emerge every day: promiscuity, drugs, campus subversion, you name it! Now, by banding together as the Crimebusters, we have the chance to do something more. Separately, we're all strong and no one would argue with that, but it just isn't enough. If we were a team, we could cover so much more ground, just as the Minutemen did!" He finished his speech then, looking proud.

"I agree," spoke up Nite Owl after a moment. "Me and Rorschach have made a lot of headway into the gang problem by pooling our efforts."

"Obviously, I agree," his partner said, "but a group this size seems more like a publicity exercise somehow. It's too big and unwieldy."

"Surely that's just an organizational problem," Ozymandias replied. "With the right person coordinating the group, I think it could be just as beneficial as Mr. Gardner says it will be."

Nelson smiled at that and said, "Well, I appreciate the compliment. I promise that I'll do my best to lead you guys."

"Well, I wasn't necessarily saying..." The younger blonde paused. "That is...I'm not sure if we should assume you're going to be the leader without putting it to a vote." An awkward silence hung in the air with that implication and Nelson looked stunned that anyone would suggest such a thing.

"Well, uh, yes, but...I just assumed that...what with me getting you all together and all..." he stammered. "I'm not sure if this group can really function to the best of its ability if I'm not the one..." He trailed off awkwardly.

"Oh, for the love of Christ," Laurie's father said and everyone, herself included, turned to look at them. "Would you two listen at yourselves? Ya sound fuckin' ridiculous. Ozy, it's no goddamn secret thatcha think you're better than the rest of us. Smartest man in the world an' all that, right?"

Laurie shrank into her seat, humiliated, as he continued. "And as for you, Nelly, you're just gettin' old and wanna go on playin' cowboys and Indians. All of ya look like idiots, alright? This whole Crimebuster shtick, it stinks."

Nelson mumbled something, looking almost as humiliated as Laurie felt, while Ozymandias said, "You're being a bit unfair, don't you think? It doesn't take a genius to see that America has problems that need tackling-"

"Damn straight, an' it takes a moron to think they're small enough for clowns like you guys to handle." He shook his head. "What's going down in the world, you got no idea. Believe me."

"I think I'm as well-informed as anyone," the younger man replied icily. "Given correct handling, none of the world's problems are insurmountable. All it takes is a little _intelligence_." Laurie did not miss the sarcastic emphasis on his final word.

"Which you got in spades, right?" Her father didn't miss it either, but he wasn't ready to back down at the insult. "You people are a joke. You hear Moloch's back in town and you think, 'oh boy! Let's gang up and bust him!' You think that matters? You think that solves anything?"

"Well, of course it matters," said Rorschach, attempting to join the argument.

"It don't matter squat," he said. "It don't matter because...because..." His eyes fell on his humiliated daughter then and he stopped, as if it was something he didn't want to say in front of her. "Look, it just don't matter, alright?"

No one spoke up to argue with him because he hadn't really said anything worth arguing with. Seeming satisfied, he said, "Now, if you'll excuse me, my daughter and I have more important places to be. Come on, Silk Spectre!" Cringing as all eyes turned to her, Laurie rose.

As she did, she couldn't help glancing at Dr. Manhattan again. It was hard to read his expression, but he almost seemed to look sympathetic. She gave him another smile, this one sheepish, before following her dad out of the room.

"See ya in the funny papers," he called as they left.

~X~

Laurie made it a point to not say a single word to her father the entire way home, and he seemed to be making a point not to acknowledge that. So they sat in silence and he acted like he hadn't just humiliated her and ruined everything for her, and she fantasized about how differently the meeting would have gone if she had leaped up and laid into him before he had a chance to finish a single sentence. Of course, she wasn't really strong enough to hurt him, but when she got mad enough, she was tempted to try.

When they arrived home, Hollis was waiting for them and somehow did not notice the incredibly obvious tension when they walked in the door. He smiled and said, "How was it? How's Nelson doing?"

"Probably a nervous wreck after the shit Dad pulled," Laurie snapped.

"Watch your damn mouth," was all her father said, but it was more than he would usually say- he never really minded her cursing- which meant he had to still be in a bad mood.

"What do you mean?" asked Hollis.

"Well, Dad decided to go on some big spiel about how stupid the whole idea was and insult Captain Metropolis and pick a fight with Ozymandias and embarrass me in front of everyone and ruin everything!" she shouted.

"Eddie, is all of that true?"

"More or less," he said with a shrug. "Couldn't help it, Hollis. I tried to keep it cool, I really did, but I couldn't handle hearin' their bullshit anymore. I mean, you understand how pointless it is, right?"

Before Hollis could respond, Laurie had turned on him, "You did this, didn't you? You didn't want me and Dad doing this so much that you convinced him! You guys planned to ruin everything for me!" Both started to protest, but she cut them off. "Of course you'd choose now to start getting along. Gotta say, it's low for both of you."

She stormed out of the room then, but stopped and turned back to tell them one more thing. "Oh, and by the way. I don't care how much you guys don't want me to be a hero or whatever, I'm not stopping. In fact, I'm going to be working on my own from now on, so good luck stopping me! Sorry, Dad, but you just lost yourself a sidekick."

Neither of them tried to say anything more to her.

 **A/N: Next chapter is the last, but not forever, I hope. It'll round out this story, but I hope to revisit this universe, because I feel like there's more to touch on, like Dan's feelings for her, how her relationship with Jon might be different, how she might eventually find out the true nature of Eddie and Sally's relationship...but for now, I'm ending it next chapter!**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: It's the final chapter of this story! First part is more focused on Jon and Laurie's relationship, then that ties in with her family. There should be more in this series in the future, though, so it's not the real end.**

Laurie was sure that she would be stopped from going out on her own at some point, but nothing much was said to her after her declaration, and soon enough her father was back out of town with more work. Hollis might have wanted to say something and he certainly looked sad whenever he happened to see her leaving in her costume, but he didn't and she had no intention of listening if he ever did.

She was tired of her family holding her back. All her life, they had trained her for this, and now it had been revealed to be some big sham. Neither of them really wanted her on the streets, neither of them wanted her to live up to her mother's name, and neither of them would let her grow up. But she was seventeen now and that meant she was almost an adult. She was old enough to make her own decisions about these sorts of things.

So every night, she patrolled by herself, with only her fists and gun. And sometimes the new Nite Owl, but that was not something that happened of her own will. If she had it her way, she would be kicking ass, taking names, and making headlines all on her own, and showing her father who the real hero in the family was- and on her own left room for nobody, particularly not Hollis' successor.

But that didn't stop him from showing up every now and then. She would be walking down an alley by herself, when she would hear the familiar rustle of his costume and he'd step out of the shadows, waving an awkward hello. She'd ask him if Hollis put him up to it, and he'd insist it was his own decision.

"I'm so sure," she'd always say, rolling her eyes. And then she would continue walking while he followed behind her, attempting to make awkward conversation. Sometimes he would make small talk, other times he would ask her if she had any interesting cases, and there were some times that he would try to entice her by asking if she could give insight on one that he was following.

Every time, she would shoot him down, saying something like, "Isn't Rorschach waiting for you?" or "You can tell Hollis I'm still too old for a babysitter," and then Nite Owl would finally take the hint and leave. She would feel bad for a moment, because he seemed like a sweet enough guy, but then she would remember how mad she was that Hollis had sent him in the first place and she didn't care.

There was one exception to her rule of always working alone, an exception that she never expected but one that she welcomed happily. The first night she ran into Dr. Manhattan, she thought it was coincidence and debated on whether or not she should approach him. He did not give her the chance to debate on that for long.

"Hello, Silk Spectre," he said, before he even turned to look at her.

"Oh, uh, hi..." she said, wanting to smack herself for not having anything more interesting to say. "What, uh, what brings you out here?" she asked.

"The same thing as you. I have been asked to patrol like the other crime fighters and have been doing it in D.C. for a while now," he replied.

"But this is New York," she said before she realized how stupid and obvious that sounded.

"Yes, it is," he said, smiling slightly. "But travel is easy for me and I sometimes like to come back here after the meeting at Nelson Gardner's home."

Laurie groaned. "Don't remind me," she said, shaking her head. "Look, I'm sorry my dad made such an ass of himself, he...kinda does that sometimes."

"You have nothing to apologize for. It wasn't your fault what he did."

She felt better being around him after that, after he acknowledged that her humiliation was entirely her father's fault. Knowing that he didn't dislike her because of that was nice, and when she began to run into him more often, she did not hesitate to approach him. Eventually, he revealed that he was not just running into her, but that he enjoyed patrolling with her.

"Well, uh, thank you," she said. "It's really nice of you to come on patrol with me like this." She paused, wondering if she should mention the most obvious thing. "Uh...your girlfriend won't mind, will she?"

"You don't need to worry about Janey," was all he said. She hadn't known what to make of that, but she also didn't care; whatever his situation was at home didn't matter when they were on the streets together. All that mattered to her was that she was finally getting closer to the man she had admired from afar for years.

She did not really start to feel guilty until the night that they kissed. They had taken a break from their patrol, sitting together, and she had said, "I...I don't know what I should call you. Do you have another name, apart from Dr. Manhattan?"

She felt silly asking, afraid that she might be overstepping a boundary, but he didn't hesitate to reply with, "Yes. My name's Jon."

There was a pause during which something silent passed between them that she could not describe, and then they were moving toward each other as she wrapped her arms around his neck and he placed a hand behind her head and then they were kissing. It was her first, but he was a good lead.

She wasn't sure exactly how long it was supposed to last, but when she felt Jon start to pull away, she placed another light kiss on his lips, just to get another taste of him. It was her first kiss but she knew it was like nothing else she could get from anyone else; electric, intoxicating, addictive. She wanted more, but there were complications there.

"What about...you know?" she asked, looking away.

"Janey and I are no longer seeing each other," he replied simply, and that was enough for her.

~X~

The relationship that began after that- if it even was a relationship. Laurie was so very inexperienced and things with Jon were so very unusual- was quick, yet still felt steady and calm. She knew that that was just Jon's way, that being with someone like him made you feel the same tranquility he exuded after a while. Once the nerves that came from being in his presence diminished, at least.

But she knew that they could not keep this a secret forever. Jon's life was becoming more and more public, and if they were going to continue seeing one another and do more than just meet up on the streets, she would eventually be outed as Dr. Manhattan's new girlfriend. And, as rocky as things might be at home, she knew that it would be better for her father and Hollis to find out from her than from a newspaper.

On one of the increasingly more rare occasions when her father was home, she sat them both down, asking if they could talk. It had been nearly a year of them avoiding each other, with awkward meals and tension so thick you probably couldn't even cut it, and now she was trying to break the silence. Both men were at least eager to hear what she had to say, though neither were expecting the bomb that she dropped.

"I'm dating Dr. Manhattan," was all she said, and though it was true that she could have phrased it better, she had learned to be blunt from her father and knew that if she tried to skirt around the subject, he might not pick up on what exactly was going on.

"What the fuck?" her father asked, chuckling lightly. "This is a joke, right?"

Hollis blinked a few times, trying to think of how to respond to such a statement. "Uh, Laurie...what exactly do you mean?"

"It's not a joke," she replied, "and I mean exactly what it sounds like. I know this is all kinda out of the blue..." She trailed off, realizing what exactly she had said, and she couldn't help but laugh. Her father, though he looked unwilling, couldn't help it either, and the two were soon in hysterics at her unintentional joke.

When the two had recovered from their laughter, she tried to regain seriousness. "I am sorry for how sudden this is, but he and I have been running into each other on patrol a lot and something just...happened between us."

"Something illegal," Hollis said. "Do you have any idea how much older than you he is? You're not even an adult yet!"

"That doesn't matter with him," she said. "You wouldn't understand...hell, I barely do, but things are...different with him and-"

"Damn right they're different with him," her father interrupted. "Everything's different with that freak, and I don't want any daughter of mine getting involved in whatever fucked up bullshit he's got goin' on."

"For once, I'm going to have to agree with you," said Hollis. "Age difference aside, I'm not sure if this sort of relationship is something you should be getting into."

"I don't know what you guys are gonna do to stop me," she replied, not backing down. There was a time when she might have pitched a fit with cries of 'it's not fair' or 'times are different' or 'you don't understand what it's like for me', but she had grown up. She was nearly an adult and she had handled herself on the streets for a long time. If there was one thing she knew how to do, it was handle herself.

And her father knew it. She didn't know how she knew that he did, but she could tell by the way he stared her down and sized her up that he knew she was strong and stubborn and could put up a good fight. In so many ways, she was his daughter through and through, and he recognized something in her that he respected.

"She's right," he said with a shrug. "She's practically an adult, ya know. Pretty soon we won't have any control over her and, judgin' by the way she takes out criminals, she don't need our control anyway."

"What? But...Eddie, you can't seriously..." Hollis was stunned by how quickly her father had backed down, knowing him to be the sort who never gave up, even when he was in the wrong.

But he didn't change his mind on it and simply said, "We can't do everything for her. If this Dr. Manhattan turns out to be as much of a creep as we think, well, that's her own problem. We raised her as best we could to make whatever decisions she thought was best, now we just gotta trust that she learned what we tried to teach her."

"Thank you, Dad," was all she could say in that moment, but it was more than that. It was an apology for how distant she had been since the Crimebusters meeting and a forgiveness for an apology she hadn't received from him; it was an admission that he had not been bad as a father and a hope that she had not been a disappointment of a daughter.

And when he gave her a smile- not his usual carefree smirk- he told her just how proud he was of her, and that she was just as much her mother's daughter as she was his.

~X~

But Laurie was not just his daughter, nor was she just Sally's. Though they shared no blood ties, she was Hollis', and she had to make things right with him now. She knocked on his bedroom door the next night and was told to come in.

"Hey, Hollis, can we talk?" she asked, somewhat nervous. He hadn't seemed too happy before, and she was afraid he might have more to say now that her father wasn't around to give the final verdict.

"Of course," he said and, to her surprise, he smiled at her.

"Okay, well, see..." She paused as she thought on what to say. "I know things have been...rough around here lately. I know that we've not had the best relationship, because of what happened when that team thing fell through. I'm sorry about that, about some of the things I said, and I'm sorry I've been distant since then."

She took a breath before continuing, "But I'm not sorry about doing my own thing. I needed to get out there and do things for myself and carry on mom's name. I know you guys were just looking out for me, but I needed to prove that I was strong on my own and that I was capable. I needed to prove it to you and Dad but, more than that, I needed to prove it to myself.

"As for Jon- I mean, Dr. Manhattan...that's sort of separate. I mean, it had nothing to do with proving myself. He's just been around to help me a lot, and he's way easier to talk to than you'd think. Once you get used to him, I mean, and I've always been interested in him, so...yeah. I know how it must look, with the age thing, but I'm not a kid. He and I can talk, you know? So, I guess I'm just saying, I'm sorry that you don't like it, but I'm going to stay with him."

"Laurie, I understand," he said, once she had finished. "Your father and I talked last night and, well...I hate to say that he's right, but he is. You've grown up into a beautiful, intelligent, strong, capable young woman. It's wrong of us to try to hold you back from anything, and it would be wrong of us to not trust your decisions."

"Thank you," she said, because, once again, it was all she could think to say. She could feel tears threatening to well up in her eyes.

"You know, your father's really proud of you. He doesn't say it much, but you're his whole world. I've watched him, since you were born, and he's changed a lot. In some ways, he's still the same infuriating man I've known since he was sixteen and in other ways, he's very different and not half bad. All of that was for your sake. You've been a blessing in his life, and in mine. I can't even find the words to express how proud I am of you."

Now the tears were there, and she blinked a few times to stop them from falling. She had never been good at sentimental scenes like this, and they were a rarity in her life.

But when Hollis said, "And I know your mother would be very proud of you too," she couldn't stop them from falling.

 **A/N: The end...for now! The conversation between Eddie and Hollis that was mentioned in that last scene will be the first of the side stories I'm working on, so yeah. Hopefully I'll be starting up a sequel for this soon, as soon as I figure out where exactly I'm going with it and get a good outline down. I hope you guys enjoyed this crazy ride!**


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